To: Hawkmoon who wrote (22655 ) 3/30/2002 11:21:19 AM From: Zeev Hed Read Replies (2) | Respond to Hawk, what is a "nation" has been an interesting question since 1917, when the Soviets decided to give each region some degree of autonomy. Stalin actually "penned" (if he did or someone did in his name, know not) a theoretical treatise on the subject which served as the basis for the division of the empire into "Soviets". He had five common elements to a group of people claiming "National identity", common heritage, common religion, common language, common geography and I forgot the fifth element. What is interesting is that following this theoretical analysis, when he was handling the problem of "Jews in the USSR" (always a thorn on his side), he determined they had four of the common characteristics, but lacked the "common geography", that was the "theoretical" reasoning for forming Birobidjan, a Jewish soviet in the middle of nowhere (far from Moscow, where those troubling Jews were giving him, of course, "problems"), to satisfy the fifth common characteristic. According to that analysis, the Palestinians are not a nation (no common heritage, nor a common religion), yet, the Palestinians "consider" themselves a "nation" with national aspirations for self determination, and that is really all that counts, not what one or another theoretical definition of a "Nation" is.
